Comments on: Want High Def support in your Netbook?

By: gothsquirrel

gothsquirrel — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:38:53 +0000

Well with a chipset like that I could at least play some half life 2 on my netbook all I can play from my steam account on my 1000h is Lumines at the moment. It even struggles with snes emulators at times. I´m one to pay a little more for a really 3d chip set even if it isn´t top of the line.

By: mrwed

mrwed — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:52:58 +0000

I am definitely interested in HD video on a netbook (especially on a tablet version)–but only with HDMI, DVI or whatever other HD-capable ports I don’t know about. In fact that’s the feature I’ve been waiting for: I want to be able to bring a netbook home, hook it up to an HDTV and watch a movie. Actually I’d like to know if people are already using netbooks in this way to watch 720p video, via the VGA connection–my two-year old HP laptop doesn’t seem to be able to, and it seems more powerful than most netbooks…

By: HereAndNow

HereAndNow — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:06:42 +0000

I think this is a “must have” for business people, who want to watch a HD movie on a plane or at a hotel or who want to give a high quality multi-media presentation, during a customer visit.

The $50 difference is nothing, for such a quality multi-media improvement. The ION will also help to justify a “premium” netbook segment, which the netbook vendors can use to improve margins.

By: John in Norway

John in Norway — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:42:42 +0000

As you asked, I’ll answer your question. No. I’m not even bothered about HD on my 3 year old 37inch plasma.

By: MD

MD — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:44:46 +0000

big deal, many highpowered GPU’s could be paired with the Atom. it’s NOT about performance, it’s about performance-per-watt. if this thing cant meet its performance claims at extremely low power requirements than its no accomplishment at all.

By: JoeShmo

JoeShmo — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:09:08 +0000

The guy said the incremental price delta is $50. That’s nothing.

By: boca

boca — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:04:10 +0000

Not going to be top of the list of features that I check out for my next mini device.
Highly unlikely that I would ever use it.

By: cobalt

cobalt — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:22:33 +0000

Hey, I just wrote a comment about this earlier. I think HD video is the only thing most people would miss if they had a netbook. That is, most people don’t do much on a netbook that bogs down the processor, but then they fire up Youtube HD and it doesn’t work.

I think HD is more important for “nettops” or whatever the desktop equivalent of the netbook is. I like seeing these new Atom based NAS devices with 1 to 2 GB of RAM (like the one from Asus at CES), or the new MSI nettop. The only thing that’s holding me back is the video performance.

By: Netbook Fan

Netbook Fan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:10:05 +0000

The HD video, slightly bigger screen sizes and more performance are fine.

But I’d be reluctant to sacrifice battery life to get those.

By: Luscious

Luscious — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:36:41 +0000

720p HD video will already play well on a 2133 mini note, and with the 1280×800 screen you get to see every pixel of it too. And while it won’t do 1020p, the 2133 will handle every other video format out there, be it WMV-HD, VOB or quick time.

While 1020p is all the rage and looks great on a 60 inch screen, 720p is just as impressive, and actually plays and looks much better on a netbook’s small screen. I’ve been exceedingly satisfied with the 720p playback on my 2133, it looks much better that regular DVD playback on a larger 14 inch notebook.

I’m anticipating the 2140 may make 1020p playable, but it’s screen won’t support playback at the native res, and lacks a HD output with HDCP. One of the great things about the HP netbook is that they have full-size 2.5″ drives, giving 500GB of storage for a/v files.

If portable multimedia is your dream for a netbook, wait for 2010. By then, you’ll get a nice Medfield netbook with a roomy 2TB drive in it, and who knows what else.